Potential of an Ordinary Martial Artist
by Zemez
Summary: So... how do I say that I was not only stabbed without putting up a fight, I was even stabbed by the 2nd place winner of a competition I participated in. Not only that. but that she was my girlfriend. I still cant decide whether or not this was a good or bad change of lifestyle.
1. New World!

_I suppose the first thing I should say, is that years have passed, yet I still don't know whether the day my life changed, was good or bad, but one thing I could say, is that it was different than what I ever believed. It all started…_

Day, 1

In a desert… A freaking desert. I woke up in a freaking desert… it's noon, and hot.

Day, 2

Walked for miles through the night. Cold… so cold. So thirsty…

Day, 3

Somethings keeping me alive, I thought the pain I felt was just temporary, but the air feels weird, thick, as if it wants to congregate in me but can't. but one things for sure, it's keeping me alive, through the pain, I can feel it nourishing me.

Day, 5

Still haven't seen the edge of the desert. The pain has lessened, but I can still feel it. Pulsing painfully as if like veins. Still haven't been hungry or thirsty, but so tired, but I feel that if I fall asleep I may not wake up.

Day, 7

The pain died down, and after continuing walking I saw two figures in the distance, both fighting, looks like hand to hand combat… great, I can finally get some help, and figure out… where I… am.

* * *

*thump* the sound of an object hitting the sound, though far, still attracted the attention of the two figures in the distance. Leaping through the air the two figures instantly arrived at the figure of a male laying down in the sand, compared to the blank white hooded robes the two figures are wearing his bleach white clothes could be considered colorful.

"is he dead?" the left figure suddenly feels on the downed male's neck. Then shakes its head in confirmative.

"dehydrated, starving, tired, but miraculously not dead. Estimated time in desert, a week." The figure suddenly spoke up, sounding fairly androgynous.

"do you think he's?" the right figure spoke up, sounding male.

"no. he doesn't have any veins, but ethernano clings to him like a heavy cloak."

"should we stop this trip and take him back" the right figure nodded, and picked the male up, before disappearing. The remaining figure looks at the distance where the male's feet were facing before disappearing as well with the sound of a flourishing cloak.

* * *

"I'm glad you don't hold my winning against you mi'lady. And I'm especially glad that you aren't like your father was at your age, trying to steal the crystal from me like your father did to mine."

"it's no problem. I didn't really want the crystal anyways."

"that's a relief. Anyways, it's getting late, I better be getting back home."

"sure, here." *cshnk* pain, indescribable pain in my stomach, as if my being was being torn apart. "you'll be able to use it better than me."

"see yah, Qui"

"damn... damn… DAMN YOU-"

"-ZUA!" the sight of the edge of a stone bedpost entered my view, with my legs hidden under thick but bland grey blankets. The smell of rock and dust entered my nostrils, with the sounds of heavy breathing, my breathing, finally came into focus.

I looked around, it was just a room with the bed I was laying on and nothing more, the most was that there was a faint outline in the wall, as if a door is supposed to be there, but was never finished.

*crrrch*

…the stone door I was just looking at opened downwards like one of those futuristic doors, or fantasy secret passages… in the doorway stood a humanoid person draped in a blank white hooded cloak. They used a long sleeve to beckon me to follow them. So, without any sense of civility, I throw the blankets off and follow along.

* * *

 **First chapter. Alright. at the least this might be updated once a month, if not, it'll be updated earlier according to my fancy. But currently this is just a story for my custom magic. Don't look at me like that, I'm a programmer, not a professional storywriter! And yes, this IS a Fairy Tail fanfic.**

 **Pronunciations:**

 **Qui- kwi**

 **Zua- zue-a**


	2. A Confusing Offer I Can't Refuse!

_That day… That was the beginning. The beginning of my true adventure._

Immediately after I left the room my vision went dark. I started to reach for the blindfold they put over my head when I heard a woman's voice.

"Don't take it off, not unless you want to lose your head with it."

I nodded, obviously they were taking me through somewhere they didn't want me to see, otherwise why would they only blindfold me and not tie me up?

They each put a hand on my respective shoulder and guided me along. twenty steps, left turn, eight steps, left again, eventually I lost track of the twisting lines we went along.

Before I knew it we arrived at the destination apparently as I felt them taking the blindfold off. what greeted me was a cylindrical room reaching up to where I could barely see the roof at about a hundred meters. At every ten-meter interval up there were balconies with various robed figures, each ten meters up their robes got progressively darker, from white on the lowest levels to black on the highest.

"welcome, to the monastery of potential."

My gaze immediately went back down towards a gold robed fellow about 2 heads shorter than me, sounding like a man around fifty.

"it's… it's well, I suppose I should say thank you for inviting me?"

The gold robed guy laughed at that. "no, I suppose you waking up and then being escorted around blindfolded might not be the best way to be introduced."

"well, when you say it like that it does sound a little suspicious."

He shook his head as if throwing off a funny thought and then started to monologue "Two of our disciples found you passed out in the desert surrounding our school. I am glad that they brought you back, for from my own examination of you, I have deemed that you have the potential to become a student here."

"From here on, if you decide to accept, your first step will be to convert your magic core, a process that may kill you. While I cannot tell you the details of our discipline until you complete the conversion, if you leave, we will not pursue you."

What is this talk about magic cores? Magic? Isn't that just a myth? But, I suppose that if I am in another world it may exist. Now the question is, do I take this chancer, fake or not? A new, potentially dangerous world, I don't know the first thing about it, so, if I leave, I probably have the same chance of dying out there as I do due to this "conversion". And, one thing I want… Is to survive!

"I accept."

* * *

In the upper reaches of the chamber, a person in a dark grey cloak leaves the balcony through the entrance behind them. As they walk through the dark lit corridor they lift off their hood, revealing a feminine face, with a sharp chin. Smiling with a bright glint in her eyes.

* * *

 **Whelp, another chapter, would've been out earlier, but I got stuck on the old man's offer. So, this talk of magic cores, conversion, and that mysterious women? What has our hero gotten himself into now?**


	3. No Survivors!

"I shall now bestow the conversion upon you, steel your mind, and prepare." The golden robed elder motioned me to kneel, I complied. As I kneeled, the elder reached towards my crown. As he touched I felt something in my stomach _Shatter_ , Then I knew darkness.

* * *

As the elder in the golden robes removed his hands from the youth in front of him. The two golden doors behind the kneeling youth Opened, in the doorway was a sharp chinned woman in her twenty's, smiling with a mouth full of sharp teeth dressed in the order's dark grey robe signaling her status as a minor elder who has reached crystallization.

"what are you doing here? Why have you left your viewing balcony?" the old man was startled, why would this elder break tradition?

"hall master…" she started while walking forward with her arms behind her back. "I regret to inform you, but the wizards have found us."

The golden robed man started, and began thinking of how to repel the intruders. So lost in thought the Hall Master was that he didn't notice that the woman had reached his side. Before long he was roused from his thoughts by a hand in the small of his back and a feeling of weakness following it. As his knees gave out it revealed the woman's figure holding her hand out with a grey magic circle spinning at a leisurely pace.

As he fell to the ground the most he could do was twist so that he fell on his back, as he looked up he saw many of the other robed figures from every level falling down the same as him. As he looked back towards the woman who disabled him he could only croak out on word. "Why?"

She shook her head as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing and spoke, "Why? We didn't realize our plan worked this well, we thought you were on to us. Which is why we rushed, but it seems we didn't need to. Interitus would have smuggled in more people otherwise. Oh well, we still brought enough people."

From underneath the Hall master the golden floor started bubbling, his eyes showed panic as he showed the thought of struggling but not the strength to actually struggle. Eventually the hall master sunk to where he was no longer visible, sealing his fate as to be forever part of the decorations in death.

The woman who was monologuing looked furious at the hall master having sunken into the floor. "I'm not happy with you killing him so suddenly Vince." She said still looking at the floor.

"you were talking to long Zua, now get out of here and help take care of stragglers." A voice as flat as ice came from above.

"fine, fine, I'll go, just make sure to take care of the kid. We can't have him escaping and starting up another monastery." The woman now known as Zua walked out as the golden doors shut behind him.

Alone on the bottom, the floor beneath the kneeling kid starts bubbling as the kid starts sinking.

"it's your lucky day kid, you got me as your executioner. If you survive you should be able to break out. Good luck."

As Vince's voice fades away the boy is fully submerged and the ground stops bubbling.

* * *

 **Sorry for the, in my opinion, late update. Things just kept coming up. Anyways, game over, the protagonist dead. story's over go home.**

 **Not really, but still sorry for the late upload, Things should go faster now that I can go from the point of the Protagonist from now on.**


	4. History Lesson!

My eyes opened to a land of blackness, a void in reality where nothing existed, even my own existence was merely an illusory wisp of consciousness.

"Through greed or by chance, you have found my soul and used it to convert your core, hereby claiming yourself as my heir, and gaining the right of learning the true art of Potential of Life!" A voice boomed in the void, reverberating back off of invisible walls.

"Now listen up, for this is a memory fragment I left, and this will not be repeated a second time. From the beginning, dragons ruled both the sky and the earth, ruling over humans like shepherds. A split in the dragon's mentality appeared and dragons offered to teach humans their magic! Everybody who they offered accepted, Except me! In my mind the dragons would never disappear as the overlords of humanity if we used their magic against them. So thus, armed with a myriad of weapons and armor, I fought tens to hundreds of battles with dragons by myself, each time ending in defeat but each time I won, for I came closer to realizing what made humanity strong!"

The void bloomed into color as the voice talked, first swirling into thousands of different colored dragons flying through the sky, before swirling into a grey dragon talking to a group of humans. The images swirled into a man in his thirties who walked away from a red dragon before swirling into the same man armed with full plate and a spear wielded in the right hand and a shield in his left running towards a dragon. The void then showed the spearhead breaking on contact with the dragon but not without a few shards getting stuck in its scales.

"Every time I used a weapon I became more proficient with wielding it, each time I fought I realized that I could not fight effectively with heavy armors, each time I fought I dragon I realized that they had weak points innate to their race! Thus, I chose for my weapon to fight the dragons to not be an Axe, neither a sword, nor a spear, but myself, for we adapt to become stronger, every time I ran in defeat I Discovered What I did wrong, and eventually, I decided, that rigid weapons that could not change were useless, armor that would bend to easily to force was weak! The only thing that could fight with flexibleness but sturdiness in the face of overwhelming force was the body!"

Each swirl showed the man aging but also becoming more skillful in each swing or thrust of a weapon, and each year showed less and less armor on the man to where eventually after countless retreats and countless years, the man was without weapon or armor, facing dragons with nothing but his bare fists. Each fist would crush a scale and every jump would cause Stalactites to fall!

"Eventually my fists were never enough, I could break scales with my hands and cause mountains to tremble with my feet, but I could never kill a dragon. In a fortuitous encounter, I met a dragon-slayer named Acnologia, in which He then proceeded to wipe the floor with me. However, in that battle I found the one thing I was missing, Magic…"

The void swirled to show a rather muscular young man with long, dark blue colored hair punching the man now in his mid-thirties, with a fist covered in soul blue colored light.

"So thus, for a year I wandered studying magic, and after that year, after finding no magic that would complement my will, I decided to make my own. What were these things called cores, merely containers of magic, located in a specific region of the body, I decided that this was useless, how would the magic help if it was merely stored in one place and then released but could never stay?"

"I then researched the human body, in which I found a fascination with the veins, how the blood nourished the muscles but never left the body, this became the basis of my art, the core would become like veins and magic would become like blood!"

"The entire process was painful, and in multiple instances I almost died, but after a week, I molded my core into ethereal veins, in which most of the magic actually leaked into my bone and muscle, with the magic that wasn't suffused left my body to join the magic in the air to by reabsorbed through my breathing!"

"This will be the first history lesson you get, my memory fragments will be locked until your veins reach the second level of potential of life, Demi! Being half mortal half god!"

* * *

In the dilapidated halls of the monastery two people looked into the gold chamber where the massacre occurred, everything having a light layer of dust on it.

"We've struck it rich! Gold, actual gold! Quick mine it up!"

The two-people covered by their dark clothing as well as the darkness of the hall raised their hands as the gold started melting upwards into a ball eventually revealing the still kneeling form of Qui*.

"Hold on... Bro, is that a human? I think that is, and he's still alive! Quick if we can bring him to the Mortal's End Arena we might make a fortune! He's been entombed here for who knows how long, he must be a wizard!"

* * *

 ***It's been awhile but Qui is the name of our protagonist pronounced coo-we. Stated by Lua (Lue-ah) in chapter 1 as she plunged a crystal into his stomach.**

 **And… info dump, done. This will be the first of many. And yes, the creator of this magic is supposed to be eccentric, he refused dragon slaying magic purely on the principle of humanity which would be the same thing I would do. Even if I could never face against dragons and dragon-slaying magic looks cool.**

 **And I just realized quite literally after editing this on FanFiction, that I named our protagonist's girlfriend after coding language...**

 **For those of you who read this far, you've earned the right to criticism. please comment and tell me my mistakes. No, the chapter length is non-negotiable.**


	5. Mortal's End Arena! Part 1

" _Are you sure this was the right choice?"_

" _Right or wrong it doesn't matter."_

" _But he's your son."_

" _And that's why…"_

* * *

The world came back in a wash of grey in which I was laying on my back on stone, with dampness covering my forehead. Turning my head to the side I see a girl in rags with pink hair filled with knots washing cloth. As my vision clears she turns to put down the cloth and looks in my direction.

After neatly folding the cloth she gets up and starts walking towards me, upon reaching me she lifts the damp cloth on my forehead and puts her hand there instead.

"are you coherent?" she asks, her rough voice sounding heavenly to my addled mind.

"yes…" my own voice croaks out, much to my surprise it hits me then, that ever since I came here I haven't had anything to eat or drink. My throat feels like cotton and my tongue swollen.

"wa… ter…" before the second part of my request was finished she grabbed a bowl from what I guess was the edge of a table above my head and tipped it down my throat. Although I couldn't taste it I could tell that it was water.

"thank… you."

She shook her head, "unfortunately, you'll be going out there in an hour now that you've woken up."

From my memories, the last place I was at was the monastery, the grey stone doesn't fit the aesthetics of the monastery. So then, there's only one question, "where… are we?"

"Mortal's end arena, you've been sold to this place as a fighter. You'll be facing off against exceptional people and powerful wizards. In mortal's end, no means of winning is outlawed, even forbidden magic is allowed. There are no forfeits only death."

So, an arena, wonderful. I hear her pick up the cloths she was cleaning and leave through the door. As the last vestiges of fog cleared from my mind I sat up. Frowning, the world seems much different, like a static in the air that can be felt on my skin, and when I breathe the static enters my lungs before being diffused throughout my body.

Upon a whim of remembering the man's strength in the memory fragment, I grab a loose stone and crush it. Letting go, rubble drops to the floor. Ok, feeling better about this gladiatorial thing. Breathe in, the static follows the air, travels along an invisible pathway, diffuses into my muscles, and the leftover goes into the air around me, breath out, no static.

After was I would guess would be an hour my door opened, and a short balding man came into the room.

"your turn, follow me." A very brief interaction, but effective. I got up after him and followed him down corridor after corridor, passing hundreds of cells like my own. Before I knew it, daylight blinded my eyes as I walked into the arena…

* * *

 **Sorry for the short chapter and with the amount of time it took. But high school and college are terribly complicated. Second half of this chapter should be out sometime next week, maybe on the weekend.**


	6. Mortal's End Arena! Part 2

As the Midday sun blinded me, the cacophony of the audience's excitement entered my ears. A symphony of gluttony and arousal. Thirsty for the sight of blood and broken bones.

"welcome, spectators, to today's 73rd match. Our current running champion, Ripper! For those of you who have just entered, Ripper has won a consecutive 37 matches by ripping his opponents limb from limb! Now, our current competitor, found in a monastery under several feet of gold, shall we see if he survives?"

The announcers voice rumbled in the air, exciting the maddened audience even more. Across from me, a bare chested tall man with scars, old and new, some still bleeding.

"Contestants, ready to bring an end to the others mortality, GO!"

The man immediately rushed me, although the man was taller and wider than me, I felt no fear. Strangely, I felt as if even if this man tried to harm me, with only his fists he would never succeed. Before I knew it, the man was infront of me, hand over my face before throwing me into the stadium walls.

"And Ripper immediately starts off with a wall slam. Is it over? Is our challenger dead?"

The rubble around me shifted as I lifted a particularly large piece off of me. Throwing it at the man to get his attention, he immediately turns and charges again. This time instead of allowing me to grap me I grab his hand and spin with all my strength, letting go after going one full circle.

The man flies through the air and crashes into the opposite wall, embedding himself a few feet inside to the point where even I wasn't sure if he was alive.

"Did. You. See that people! Our challenger immediately after being thrown throws right back! I could have never guessed that this small guy would have such hard pitch!"

Even after several minutes Ripper didn't come out of the hole. As soon as I was declared the winner several men came out and dragged me back to my cell…

* * *

 **Here's the second part. Again, sorry for this.**


End file.
